As the world leaders and powerful dignitaries watched from their raised podiums, silence blanketed the training grounds.
This was more than a showcase.
It was a ssage.
A performance, yes, but beneath it, everyone was watching for weaknesses, alliances, threats. The next generation was not walking into the light.
They were stepping into judgnt.
A voice rang out through the arena’s sound system, formal and steady:
"Now presenting the representative of the Hero Association of the Elaron Federation."
A murmur swept the audience.
From the far end of the field, the gate hissed open.
And out walked a girl.
No older than nine.
She stepped onto the training ground alone, dressed in the standard Hero Association uniform white with pale blue stripes trailing down the sleeves, stitched with the insignia of the Federation over her left shoulder.
From the observation box above, Chairwoman Elene Dais of the Elaron Federation said nothing. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes followed the girl’s every movent sharp, unwavering.
Soone nearby whispered, flipping through a sleek dossier.
"Selene Dais. Her daughter. One of the youngest registered prodigies in Federation history. They say her Tier Potential hasn’t even peaked yet it just keeps rising."
She reached the center of the platform.
And she bowed not to the crowd, but to the foreign delegations and world leaders watching from their ivory seats.
Then she began.
A ripple of light shimred across Selene’s skin, rising like mist. Her body glowed in hues of deep blue, ethereal and wild.
Behind her, a radiant wheel burst into view spinning slowly at first, then gaining speed.
Gasps echoed through the chamber.
The wheel grew, edges gleaming like sharpened glass. Runes pulsed along its outer ring.
The floor beneath her cracked.
The stone groaned under the pressure—thin lines crawling outward like veins.
Then silence.
The wheel spun one last ti... and stopped.
The mont it stilled, the combat dummy standing before her exploded.
Wood, tal, and synthetic bone shattered apart like paper split clean, precise, obliterated.
Even the sensors embedded inside the dummy sparked and went dead.
A beat passed.
Then the announcer’s voice, slightly shaken, returned.
"Incredible. Only nine years old... and she managed to break the advanced dummy."
Evelyne’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise and pride flashing beneath her calm exterior. She clenched her fists at her sides, feeling the familiar rush of determination stir in her chest.
The crowd murmured in disbelief, but Evelyne barely noticed. Her focus sharpened, every fiber of her being tuning in to the mont ahead.
She took a steadying breath, straightened her posture, and adjusted the grip on her sword the weight grounding her like a promise.
This is it, she thought. Ti to show them what I’m truly capable of.
⸻
"Now presenting the representative of the Valkcross Empire of House Valery... Evelyne Valery Kaezel!"
I stepped onto the platform alone.
The crowd’s murmurs from Selene’s display hadn’t yet faded. I didn’t wait for them to.
My eyes drifted to the next advanced dummy newer model, polished fra, reinforced with synthetic bone and reactive armor.
I scanned it once.
Already found the weak point.
Just above the chest plate. Near the joint.— a flaw in its alignnt.
"Worthless," I murmured.
I turned from it and looked up — toward the world leaders, seated on their thrones of marble and chro, high above us all.
And I bowed. Not out of reverence.
But formality.
I straightened.
And I spoke.
"I have a request."
My voice rang out clear, slicing through the cold silence left behind by Selene’s absurdity.
"Replace the dummy with an actual combat unit. I’d prefer to demonstrate on sothing that fights back."
Murmurs burst through the crowd like static.
"She’s serious?"
"Isn’t she still in training—"
"That’s a Valery speaking."
Soone near the top rows muttered, "Too bold... or too desperate to prove sothing."
But they didn’t say no.
A mont later, a quiet chanical whir humd from the edge of the field. The floor split open with a hiss. From below, a reinforced combat unit rose taller than Evelyne, broad-shouldered, plated in chro-black armor and marked with Tier-2 combat warnings along its chest.
Its eyes lit red.
A murmur swept the dignitaries. Tier 2 wasn’t for evaluation displays. It was for live field operations. Lethal-grade.
But the system didn’t stop it.
No one intervened.
And above, the observers simply watched so amused, others tense.
In the observation tower, Arthur Valeheart leaned forward slightly, jaw clenched. His gaze never left Evelyne.
"Begin."
The robot lunged forward with chanical aggression, its limbs whirring with speed-enhancing servos, red eyes locked on Evelyne’s vitals.
She vanished.
Not with a burst. Not with noise. Just gone.
Then above it.
Evelyne reappeared mid-air, coat fluttering, sword already drawn in a reverse grip. Her boot descended with practiced grace, planting perfectly on the robot’s face like she’d always ant to stand there.
She didn’t even glance at the machine. Her eyes were fixed upward on the podiums. On the screen. On the world watching.
Then she moved.
A single step down its body
Slice.
Her blade drew a clean arc across its neck as she descended not slashing wildly, but carving like a sculptor.
The steel didn’t scream.
It whispered.
The robot froze.
And then it fell.
She sheathed her sword.
As if the fight never happened.
"System verdict: Target incapacitated. Combat efficiency: 99.6%."
Evelyne exhaled once through her nose.
She turned. Walked away. Never looked back.
The crowd hadn’t yet recovered from Evelyne’s display.
Whispers rose.
"She didn’t even look back..."
"That’s House Valery’s second daughter? How terrifying—"
"No wonder the Empire never replaced him—"
Then the platform lights flickered.
And the system chid:
"Unauthorized participant approaching."
Heads turned.
Footsteps echoed.
A figure stepped calmly onto the field.
Dressed in white robes flowing through the platform. No title called.
But every cara turned to him.
Every breath in the stadium held.
"Wait... that’s—"
"He’s not supposed to-...he’s not even in the list to-"
One of the Federation officials rose from their seat. "This is against protocol! He’s not a registered candidate!"
But the system didn’t stop him.
In fact, the platform recalibrated.
The floor shifted. Sensors pulsed. The air changed.
The system adapted.
And in a soft, chanical voice:
"Override confird. Tier Classification: Provisional Exception. Performance permitted."
Silence.
"What the hell is a Provisional Exception?" soone muttered.
No answer.
The screen didn’t display a na.
Just a symbol: ?
A mark no one dared to speak of.
Evelyne had stopped walking. She turned slightly, eyes narrowed not in surprise, but in sothing quieter. Heavier.
Kael Valery was walking toward the center of the field.
And no one could stop him.
Kael stood at the center of the platform.
Silent.
The system didn’t call his na.
It simply obeyed.
He clasped his hands together not with force, but with absolute intent.
A pulse rippled through the world.
His left eye opened.
And it shone.
Not like light.
It radiated judgnt a terrible, ancient weight that stripped away illusion and made the world rember its place beneath him.
Then
He spoke a single word:
"Mythrigan."
Then, softer:
"Worldrend"
The sky obeyed.
Not dimd.
Not clouded.
Extinguished.
Like so divine curtain had been drawn across the sun not taphorically, but literally. The stars blinked out. Light itself collapsed inward.
A forced eclipse.
The mana vanished.
Not dissipated erased.
Every mage on the continent felt it. Every array went dark. Every artifact fell cold.
And sowhere far beyond the arena,city and mountains cracked.
A single fault line tore across the earth splitting through stone, forest, and frozen cliff for miles the world fracturing in silent protest beneath a power it was never designed to contain.
In the viewing towers above, the world leaders were no longer seated.
They stood.
In readiness.
Contingency codes flared to life in their holograms. Defense grids powered up. One nation had already initiated a geo-stabilization protocol.
They didn’t speak.
But in every mind was the sa unspoken truth:
If this child had willed it...
They would all be gone.
Kael slowly lowered his hands.
And the sun returned like it had been given permission.
Light bled back into the air. The wind rembered to move.
The system chid.
But no words ca.
Because there was no Tier for this.
No category.
No precedent.
Only silence.
Not the silence of awe.
The silence after sothing irreversible.
As the world slowly gathered itself back
air rembered how to move, the sun returned to its rightful place
Kael staggered.
He dropped to his knees, one hand clutching his glowing eye.
Not in pride.
As if his body had just paid the price for sothing it was never ant to channel.
He gritted his teeth. Shoulders trembling. That single eye still pulsing faintly like a dying star.
And then
A red flash.
A sword tore through the air blazing crimson, aid straight for Kael’s throat.
A roar of energy. Fast. Unforgiving.
But it never reached him.
A barrier of steel intercepted it mid-strike—followed by a shockwave that cracked the ground.
Standing before him was a tall figure clad in black formal armor, his cape rippling from the force of the blow.
Kaezel Valery.
Eyes sharp. Expression unreadable.
His blade locked against the attacker’s, sparks hissing between them.
"You dare draw steel on Valery blood... under imperial watch?" Kaezel’s voice was calm, yet it cut sharper than the sword.
The attacker said nothing—hooded, masked, already withdrawing in a flicker of crimson light.
Cowardice. Or strategy.
Kaezel didn’t pursue.
He turned slightly, just enough to glance back at Kael his son still hunched on the platform, eye burning, fingers trembling.
For the first ti, Kaezel’s voice softened. Almost imperceptibly.
"Idiot."
Then he sheathed his sword.
And the platform was quiet again.
—
Chairwoman Elene leaned toward her aide.
A whisper precise. Cold.
"Run simulations. I want a counterasure for every phase of that ability.
Call it Protocol Eclipse. No one outside the Federation hears of it."
The aide nodded, already typing.
Elene’s eyes never left kael.
—
As Evelyne looked at the platform, sothing inside her twisted tight, bitter, rising too fast to swallow.
She clenched her fist so hard her nails cut into skin. Blood ward her palm.
Then she ran.
Out of the VIP room,
down endless corridors,
until her breath broke in her chest and her steps lost rhythm.
Not rage.
Just sothing heavier. Thicker.
The kind of sadness that presses behind your eyes but never spills.
What’s the point?
She stumbled at the edge of the pond and dropped to her knees.
Water soaked her gloves. Cold seeped through her sleeves, bit at her skin, and still she didn’t move.
Her reflection stared back, rippling, scattered.
"Damnit all, Kael..." she whispered, voice trembling. "You bastard."
The pond made no reply. Just the soft ripple of wind across water.
But in her mind, she saw it again
the little book.
The splash.
The way no one reached in after it.
They had no idea
how much strength it took just to keep walking.
To breathe.
To stand beneath that na.
Across the green field, a commotion stirred.
A boy no older than ten trapped beneath the rubble Kael’s power had left behind,
arms shaking, voice silent.
Crushed by sothing far larger than stone.
Then an older Valery moved toward him.
Silent. Focused.
He lifted the debris without ceremony,
not for praise,
but because soone had to.
Two Valerys.
Different in form.
Bound by blood, by history, by weight neither chose.
Evelyne’s heart clenched.
Not from pity
but recognition.
For a mont, the pond was forgotten.
The pain pulled back, like a tide.
She stood.
Wet clothes clinging to her. Hands raw. Eyes rimd with salt.
But steadier.
If Kael had chosen to bear the weight,
then so would she.
Not to follow him.
Not to forgive him.
But to prove there was another way to carry the na Valery.
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